


Very Good Bad Thing

by valkyriered



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Animal Death, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Shiro (Voltron)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 04:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyriered/pseuds/valkyriered
Summary: Shiro becomes a State Alchemist so he can do his research. Life gets in the way. A Fullmetal Alchemist AU.





	Very Good Bad Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Butteredonions for brainstorming with me and giving me the format, shoutout to Demenior for beta-ing and giving me a title. Love yall. <3

**00\. Shiro becomes a State Alchemist for the grant money.**  
  
Shiro does it because he wants to fly. He has dreams of soaring through the air, and draws out transmutation circle after transmutation circle, carefully plotting out ways to make it possible. But even with alchemical intervention, a human alone is not light enough to float unassisted, so he researches planes and airships. Planes are expensive, though. And becoming a State Alchemist involves money for any kind of research his heart desires, as well as access to the most well-equipped labs in the country. Eventually, his hunger to fly outweighs his desire to keep his research to himself.

When Shiro joins the State Alchemists, Keith punches him in the stomach and doesn’t talk to him for three days. He’s angry— no, _furious_ that Shiro would betray both him and their tutor like that, but Shiro is still his closest approximation to real family and so Keith warms up again quickly, although he still doesn’t forgive him.

Shiro makes a name for himself quickly, his alchemy is well-researched and well-published, and his study of the way air moves around planes leads to transmutation circles being painted across wings, and when piloted by alchemists, they go twice as fast, twice as far. He’s granted the rank of Major when he enters the military as an alchemist, but there’s talk of a promotion only a year into his work. He’s put together with the two Holts, a father-son research team that have a stronger grasp on physics than he’s seen in most practiced alchemists. Matt draws out a design for a stronger plane wing, and Shiro enhances it with alchemical circles. They work together in the massive, echoing hangar that the state allows them to use, Matt pointing out the flaws in the wings, Sam using alchemy to carefully reshape the metal, and Shiro walking around the plane, picking out spots to put his circles.

It’s good. It’s good work, being used for mostly good things, even if Shiro’s seen his designs in the other hangars, being loaded with weaponry. Even after the higher-ups requested that the three of them build a compartment that could hold and drop an armed explosive. After they’d built that one, and stood back and looked at their handiwork, Sam had left to go get a drink, and Shiro stewed in the sick feeling in his stomach.

But it’s mostly good work.

**01\. Keith is the first person at the hospital.**

Shiro wakes up without an arm and with a military guard standing over his bed. The man calls Shiro ‘sir’, and that’s how Shiro finds out that he has a promotion waiting for him once he’s discharged. But first, there’s physical therapy, and psychological evaluation, and interrogation from military officers trying to find out what happened. Sam and Matt still haven’t been recovered, he finds out. Their newest prototype had malfunctioned, had been shot down or crashed somewhere over the border. That was the last the military had heard of him.

He also finds out that it’s been almost a year, and he remembers none of it. He feels sick. But Keith is there, touching Shiro’s face with shaking hands, close to tears until Shiro scoots over to let him climb into bed with him, and then there are real tears, loud and heavy and Keith buries his face in Shiro’s chest. Shiro strokes his hair and stares at the ceiling, wondering where he was held, and what happened to him, and why his body aches the way it does.

Shiro never had any alchemical tattoos, even though Keith has them trailing up and down his arms. Shiro never wanted them— he never used his alchemy for combat, so there was no need to be able to work quickly. He always wanted to do research, which was slow and carefully thought out, and had no need to be tattooed on ones body. But when his eyes drift down to his remaining arm, he sees the concentric circles and looping ink that could only be a permanent transmutation circle. He doesn’t know what it means, and when Keith warily examines his arm, he can’t figure it out either.

He’s discharged two weeks later, and bitterly receives his promotion to become Lieutenant Colonel Shirogane. He doesn’t deserve it, but it’s a consolation prize for being the only person to return from a deadly mission. With his team now MIA, and one of his arms gone, he’s benched from flying and told to look into other areas of research. It turns out his new title is worthless— almost nobody trusts him after his year away. If not for his missing arm and his new and numerous scars, they would probably insist he’s a double agent and discharge him. So Shiro keeps his new tattoo to himself— the last thing they need is another reason to distrust him. When the medical examiner asks him about the tattoo, he lies, and says that it was an experiment he ran ages ago. He says it was a dud.

**02\. He meets ‘Pidge’ while looking into his arm.**

The loops and whorls of his new tattoo frighten him. He feels sick when he looks at it, knowing there’s something permanently attached to him, and he has no idea what it is. It’s also his only arm right now, because every time he thinks of getting automail he feels sick to his stomach at the thought of someone operating on him.

He doesn’t know why.

However, he does know alchemy. Him and Keith sit together, night after night, copying down Shiro’s tattoo onto paper, trying to decode what the different symbols mean. Shiro visits the massive military libraries, pulling out books on alchemy that haven’t been used in years, and pours over them in search of what it could mean.

Embarrassingly, he jerks pretty violently when he looks up to see a boy standing over his table. He’s dressed in a Sergeant Major’s uniform, and just looking at him Shiro can see all of the infractions. He hasn’t ironed his uniform, his shoes are unshined, his epaulets wrinkled. Still, the most striking part of him is the resemblance he has to Matt Holt. If he were a bit taller and broader, they could be twins.

He clears his throat. “Can I help you?”

He nods down at the book in his hands. “I need that book.”

“I’m using it.” Shiro says, pulling it a little closer to him. He doesn’t actually need it, it doesn’t seem like it has anything that’ll help him, but he’s a little put off by his rudeness and the fact that he’s being so short with an officer almost six ranks above him.

The boy studies him, clearly seeing right through him, but Shiro doesn’t break. Instead, he pointedly looks back down at the book and begins reading, although he’s watching him out of the corner of his eye.

“…What are you looking for?”

“What?”

“You’ve been here every night for the past week. You look at all of these books, but you’re just flipping through them. So what are you looking for?”

“Mind your own business.” Shiro says.

“Maybe I can help.”

“Are you an Alchemist?”

“No.”

“Then how would you be able to help me?” He asks, knowing full-well that Matt would hate the tone of his voice right now, the pure condescension. He and Matt both despised the State Alchemist superiority complex, but he’s tired and frightened and he has no time for a mouthy Sergeant Major to be rude to him.

Somehow, though, that earns him a smile. He grins almost viciously. “Because I’m the best.”

It takes a while to warm up to Pidge, and longer for them to trust each other. They both closely guard their secrets, until one night, pouring over books, Pidge quietly admits that he’s not here just to do research. Shiro looks at him. “Are you… is it something bad?” He asks, carefully, suddenly hyper-aware of the gun on his hip.

Pidge waves it away. “Nothing like that.” He clears his throat. “I’m looking for someone.” He side-eyes Shiro.

“Can I help?”

“Maybe.”

Pidge doesn’t say anything about it after that, until one night over coffee he quietly admits that he is actually a she, and she wants to know more about Shiro’s failed experiment with the Holts.

**03\. Lance seems to always have an eye out the window.**

Shiro quickly learns that wherever Pidge is, Lance will be too, usually gazing out the window.

“Sir.” Lance says, the first time they meet, pulling off a snappy, well-practiced salute. Shiro salutes back with his left, and he sees the familiar look of confusion, and then understanding as his eyes land on the empty sleeve. Shiro looks away.

Lance is a Sergeant, he finds out, and a sniper. He’s not sure what a sniper and a researcher have in common, but Lance ends up explaining it without him having to ask. “We were in basic together.” He says, nodding at Pidge. “She’s from a military family, so she showed me the ropes. Of course, she got a promotion immediately. Her research is—“ Lance makes some kind of strange hand motion. “Crazy, dude. Out of this world. I was so sure she was an alchemist.”

“Non-alchemists can still do alchemical research.” Shiro points out, thinking of Matt. Of course, Matt could’ve done alchemy if he wanted— he had alchemical abilities— but he was much more interested in the theory of it.

“Yeah, but how much do you see that? I feel like most State Alchemists just use it for combat nowadays. Not really research.”

“I do research.” Shiro points out.

Lance shrugs, tilting his head to look out the window. “I said most.”

Shiro shrugs too. It gets quiet except for the scratching of Pidge’s pen. Shiro showed her his tattooed array a few days ago, and since then she’s been working on decoding it. All she’s told him is that it looks organic, and that it looks like nothing she’s ever seen before. He’d suggested that maybe it’s something foreign, and she got a faraway look in her eyes and then went to get more books.

He ends up studying with her most of the time, working on his own research into archaic alchemical symbols while she studies other, further-out possibilities. His research into flight has long since been abandoned. Every time he looks at his old notes, he feels sick and puts them aside in favor of something entirely different.

It’s not like working with Sam and Matt. His team used to work together perfectly, all of them understanding what the other was thinking, until they could communicate without even needing to speak. Lance and Pidge are loud and excitable and very, very young. Neither of them have seen combat, although Lance gets pale when they receive news of armed skirmishes. Snipers and alchemists are usually the first ones to be sent to the front lines.

Still, it’s nice to not have to sit alone in his too-quiet office. Before he knows it, both Lance and Pidge have desks in his office, and chairs, and stacks of paper for their work. Shiro finds that he doesn’t really mind.

**04\. Hunk is exceedingly gentle.**

He’s probably the gentlest mechanic Shiro has ever met. Shiro has a certain idea of what automail mechanics are in his head— brusque, and strong, and usually spouting platitudes about how automail is stronger than skin, and that he’s lucky to be getting a new arm that will withstand things his flesh arm couldn’t.

The thing is, Shiro really just wants his flesh arm back.

But Lance and Pidge both tell him he should go see Hunk, and it’s starting to get difficult for Shiro to do his work with only one arm, so he goes to see him. Hunk isn’t what he expected, but the shop isn’t what he expected, either— there’s a table in the middle strewn with hardware, but there are also large windows that let the light stream in, and plants all over the place, vines crawling up the walls, flowers spilling out of pots stacked against the window.

Shiro asks Hunk if he’s an alchemist, and he flushes. “No.” He responds, a small, serene smile on his face. “I just like plants.”

The first time Hunk tries to examine the stump, Shiro snatches it back before even realizing what he’s doing. The second time he tries, Hunk manages to actually touch it before Shiro nearly falls off his stool with the need to jerk away from the touch. Hunk quietly advises that Shiro come back in a week, and he brings someone he trust with him.

Shiro does not come back in a week. Instead, he locks himself in his room and gets incredibly drunk, and tries out his new tattoo.

He downs his glass and then examines it, before putting it aside in favor of a pencil. If for some reason his arm is some kind of explosive array, it wouldn’t do to have glass flying all over the place. He grips the pencil tightly, gives a slow exhale, and then slowly, carefully, pushes energy into his arm.

He can feel the array lighting up, pulling energy from him, twisting it around and curling across his tattoo. He feels the energy flowing into the pencil, can almost imagine it being reshaped in his hand. It builds slowly as he carefully feeds it energy, and he does his best to ignore his fear as it reaches a crescendo.

And then just like that, it’s done. He opens his eyes and peers down at the pencil. Nothing. He tries writing with it, and it works just fine. He snaps it in half and examines the insides. Totally normal.

Weird.

Shiro goes back to Hunk’s two weeks later with Keith and a bottle of scotch. Hunk doesn’t say anything about Shiro missing their previous appointment. The two of them watch as he downs a few shots, and then he laces his fingers with Keith’s and lays his head down on the table before letting Hunk begin probing the stump. Nobody except the hospital staff has touched it since it happened, and he finds tears building under his eyelids as Hunk touches it carefully.

Neither of the two say anything when he wipes them away before Hunk begins explaining the procedure. He draws out the automail arm for them, points out the way it will fit. He tells Shiro that he won’t include any extra features, that Shiro should get used to it before they start exploring anything like that. That what Shiro needs first is an arm, not a toolbox. Shiro hadn’t heard anyone explain it like that before, and he’s grateful.

Hunk explains the procedure, warns Shiro about the pain involved, the extensive recovery time. Shiro just laughs. He’s felt plenty of pain in the last few months, between the phantom pain of his arm and the intense twinges as his body tries to deal with the extensive damage done to his body in his year away. Pain is nothing, recovery time is nothing compared to how long he was in the hospital, staring at the ceiling, wondering _what the fuck_ was done to his body.

Afterwards, Keith gives Hunk their phone number, and then herds Shiro out onto the street. Shiro stumbles and gets sick in someone’s rosebushes. He feels better afterwards.

 **05\. Shiro remains a State Alchemist because he wants answers.**  
  
He knows that if he fails to produce any research before the year is out, he’ll lose his certification. He thinks about doing it— he’s tired of military work, he doesn’t want his research co-opted into something that will be used to kill people. When he tells this to Pidge, she just shakes her head. “Don’t you want to find out about your arm? If you leave, you won’t have access to the libraries.” The additional reason— ‘ _you owe me_ ’ goes unsaid. She wouldn’t be wrong— it was his design that downed his plane and lost her family. He does owe it to her to help her find them. As for her insistence that the military was somehow involved, well. The more he thinks about it, the more reasonable it seems.  
  
Keith disagrees with her, and loudly tells her as much the next time she’s over for breakfast. Lance’s eyes dart between the two of them as he spoons eggs into his mouth, but he doesn’t say anything. Usually he’s perfectly happy to goad Keith into an argument, but both Pidge and Keith seem worked up enough that it’s not quite worth it.  
  
Shiro finally snaps at them to be quiet, and that shuts them up long enough for him to finish his coffee and herd Lance and Pidge out the door to work. Keith glares at him from the kitchen table.  
  
Lance spends less and less time in the office. When Shiro asks Pidge what he’s up to, she shrugs. “Snooping.” She tells him, and that’s how Shiro finds out that Lance is also convinced that their plane going down wasn’t an accident. Shiro isn’t sure how true that is, but when he looks over his notes at Pidge’s prodding, he can’t find any mistakes. He ignores the ache in his heart as he reads Matt’s familiar handwriting, and double-checks his calculations, and agrees that there wasn’t an obvious problem with alchemy. And despite his own misgivings, he starts reading through his old notes, and as he looks deeper, the ache very slowly begins to lessen, until it’s replaced only by a certainty that this wasn’t his fault, and a hunger to find out why they crashed.    
  
It becomes sort of an exchange. He looks further into his plane going down. As a higher-ranked officer, he has better access to intel and the ear of the higher-ups. For him, Pidge delves deeper into the mystery of his new tattoo. For both of them, breakthroughs are few and far between. There are constant false starts and fake leads, and Shiro will often find that a week of work has been entirely useless.  
  
He’s deep into one of his old notebooks when Pidge triumphantly slaps a slab of raw meat onto his desk. Shiro pauses.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Try it.”  
  
“…What?”  
  
“Your array. It’s organic, right?” She shoves her glasses further up her nose from where they’ve slid down in her excitement. “So it should work on this.”

“How do we know it’s not explosive?”  
  
She considers this, and then shrugs. “It’s only meat, right?”  
  
Shiro stares at her, but he clears his throat and then presses his hand to the meat. It’s damp and cold, and frankly a little disgusting.  
  
He powers up the array. This is the first time he’s done it since his attempt with the pencil, and he wrote it off as a dud. Still, he’s apprehensive as it slowly begins to glow. “Stand back.” He tells Pidge. If it does end up being dangerous, there’s no need for her to get caught up in it. She rolls her eyes, but takes a requisite step back.  
  
And nothing happens.  
  
Shiro pushes in a bit more power, but still nothing. He sighs, and then pulls his hand away.  
  
“Why did you stop?” Pidge asks.  
  
“Nothing was happening.” Shiro shrugs, and then looks down at his hand. It’s soaked in brown blood from the meat, but when he looks back at the surface it’s just as damp as it was earlier. He experimentally runs his automail hand across the surface of it, but when he pulls it away there’s only a bit of dampness.  
  
Weird.  
  
Pidge sighs. “Maybe it is a dud.” She picks up the slab of meat and then drops it in his trash can with a dull thud.  
  
“Hey, you’re going to take that outside, right? I don’t need flies in my office.”  
  
Pidge just shrugs, then stuffs her hands in her pockets and leaves, scowling at their newest roadblock.  
  
The next time she enters, it’s with a live rat.  
  
“What the fuck, Pidge.”  
  
“I think maybe it needs to be alive.” She says, putting the cage on his desk. “You’re not a vegetarian, right?”  
  
“No, but—“  
  
“Paper research isn’t going anywhere. So we’re going to conduct experiments.”  
  
Shiro stares at her before sighing and putting his pencil aside. “Why a rat?”  
  
“It’s definitely organic. But I think maybe it has to be alive.”  
  
Shiro makes a face. “Where did you find it?”  
  
“I got it. At a pet store.”  
  
“A _pet store_?”  
  
“What, you’d rather have a diseased street rat?” She says, but she looks a little guilty as she opens the cage and hands him the animal. It’s quiet and content in his palm, and sniffs curiously at the hair. He strokes its little head.  
  
Pidge takes a step back. “Go on, then.”  
  
Shiro sighs, looking down at the creature again. His arm’s array is probably a dud. It probably won’t do anything at all. Still— “Sorry, little guy.” Shiro murmurs in quiet apology, before closing his hands around the rat and powering up the array.  
  
It begins squealing almost immediately, and Shiro can feel it’s little claws scratching at his palms, its teeth biting into the skin and metal. He hears Pidge inhale sharply, but seemingly sensing his hesitation she tells him not to stop.

He doesn’t stop. The rat goes quiet, and his hands feel damp, but he doesn’t stop until the array is at full power.  
  
And then he stops.  
  
When he opens his hands, the rat is motionless, its mouth hanging open, its little teeth stained with blood. There’s blood— all over his hands. Leaking out of its mouth, its eyes. Shiro chokes. Pidge takes a step forward, and Shiro hears her breath catch as she sees the body. She moves to prod at it, and Shiro wants to tell her not to, knows that it’s a bad idea and he doesn’t want to know, he doesn’t want to _see_ , but she pokes it and they both watch the gelatinous way its skin moves, like there’s nothing on the inside, like everything’s been dissolved.  
  
Shiro gags, dropping the wet rat onto his paperwork and shoving away from his desk. Pidge is quick to scoop it up, and he knows that she’s going to take it to a lab and cut it open and confirm what they both know.  
  
He stumbles into the bathroom off of his office and gets sick in the sink.  
  
Later, when he’s washing his hands, he examines the bites and scratches decorating his palms. They sting under the soap and water. He scrubs them clean and dries off his hands. The last thing he needs is for the cuts to get infected.  
  
Pidge is waiting in his office when he comes back. The rat and the cage are gone, but the papers, wet with blood, still sit on his desk. He shoves them into the trash can without looking at them and clears his throat.  
  
“Let’s get back to work.”

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out at queenvallkyrie.tumblr.com, where i post things.


End file.
